


In This Valley of Strange Humors

by jellybeanforest



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Bad coping mechanisms, Bottom Steve Rogers, Brief Mentions of Pepper Potts/Tony Stark - Freeform, Cap-IronMan Community Gifts, Grief, Hurt/Attempted but Failed Comfort, Love Confession, M/M, Phone Sex, Rape Fantasy, Sex Toys, Slight Canon Divergence, Unhappy Ending, not a fix it, things aren't what they seem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:41:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27678235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellybeanforest/pseuds/jellybeanforest
Summary: Steve calls Tony on the emergency flip phone with worrying frequency. After a pep talk from Bucky who expresses the team’s concerns, Steve decides to end it.Based on a prompt for the 2020 Cap-IronMan Community Gifts.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 19
Kudos: 53
Collections: 2020 Captain America/Iron Man Holiday Exchange





	In This Valley of Strange Humors

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cap Iron Man Community](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Cap+Iron+Man+Community).



Steve had meant for the burner phone to be used for emergencies only, for when Tony needed him. He hadn’t specified for what, but he had always assumed Tony would call in the event of a global cataclysm or perhaps even a bad hair day (not that either of those happened often). Deep down, he had hoped that that’s how it would start anyway. Tony would need Steve, and Steve would rise to the occasion, leading to their eventual reconciliation and the restoration of their partnership without devolving into arguments over the Accords or Bucky or… well, it didn’t matter.

That’s what he had written in the letter: _No matter what, I promise you. If you need us – if you need me – I’ll be there._

The phone was meant as a way for _Tony_ to reach out to _Steve_. Steve had never imagined he would be the one to rely on it so heavily.

“We could have really used Iron Man today,” Steve tells him after a mission while on speaker phone. He had long peeled off his ops suit to change into his civvies and now tries to straighten out his starched collar. “Sam and Vision are great for aerial support, but one can never have too many fliers when the enemy is airborne.”

“You did fine. I saw the news reports. Extensive property damage, but no civilian casualties.”

“Today there weren’t, but… well, you know how it is.” His team goes where they’re needed, but it’s not always so clean, and the bodies… they pile up. All those deaths – every last one of them – weigh on his conscience. Hell, he still thinks of–

“You do your best every time you go out there, and if you ever want to hang up the shield… you know you have my full support and that of the Avengers.”

Steve pauses in combing his hair. “I can’t leave. There’s still so much left to do.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

He sighs and continues running the teeth through his tresses. “I don’t know how you did it, Tony. Every time I think of stepping away from all this, I wonder… what happens next time? What if I could have helped, but I don’t, and the worst happens? I have a responsibility–”

“All of us want to go home some time.”

“…Do you ever regret it?” He puts the comb away, his hand resting on the medicine cabinet. “Wait, don’t answer that.”

“…It comes with the job, but there’s no shame in living during the quiet moments in between. We had some good times, me and Pepper, and I’d like to think it still meant something, even if it didn’t last.” There’s another pause as Tony redirects the conversation back on Steve. “What about you, Cap? Got a lady friend in your life these days?”

Steve lightly applies some hair gel. He contemplates just how much to tell Tony before admitting, “No, no one yet.”

“That’s a shame. Nice ass like that should have someone to appreciate it.”

_Still the same old Tony._

Even after everything that’s happened.

“I do have a date in like… forty-five minutes, so I’ve got to get going or I’ll be late.” He washes his hands.

Tony seems pleased with his answer. “Ah, busy busy, Cap. First, you save the world–”

“It wasn’t that serious–”

“And then you save your love life. A bit of advice though: If you feel the date is going sideways, tell her about the world-saving bit. Ladies love a hero.”

Steve slumps over the sink, his palms planted on the edge. He looks up to stare his reflection. “Give my love to Nat, okay? I miss her… I miss you both.”

“I’ll relay the message for you when I see her,” Tony replies, his voice warm.

“Goodbye Tony.”

“Nuh uh uh, what are the magic words, Cap?”

“Not yet, okay? Goodbye for now,” Steve clarifies.

“Okay, whenever you’re ready then. Farewell Steve, and good luck tonight.”

“You too,” he says before he can stop himself. He winces at the embarrassing faux pas.

Tony chuckles softly. “Funny.”

The date is a bust. He can barely talk to Julie, has absolutely nothing in common with her. She checks her phone ten times in the span of half as many minutes before taking an emergency call from her ‘roommate.’ With his enhanced hearing, Steve knows it’s a befuddled telemarketer on the line, but he lets her go, wishing her well as she leaves to console her ‘friend’ whose fictional dog had just been hit by a car.

He’s used to the rejection by now, and Julie is just another instance in a long line of failures.

Steve pays their check and jogs home, not even bothering to call a cab.

“Did you tell her you saved a bus full of orphans?” Tony asks him later, during the postmortem call.

“I didn’t save a bus full of orphans.”

“It was a whole city block. I’m sure that there was a group of orphans there on a field trip or something. Do they still do that these days? Take them out in accountabili-buddy pairs to see the sites when they’re not scrubbing the mudroom with a bristle brush a-la-Annie?”

Steve rolls his eyes. “And how would that go exactly? ‘I saved a bunch of unfortunate children so you should suck my cock?’ I didn’t do it for the side benefits, and it’s not like she owes me anything for it.”

“Well no, but it might have helped your case.”

“You weren’t there. The date wasn’t going anywhere. There was no chemistry. So not only would it have been pathetic and coercive to try, it wouldn’t even have worked regardless,” he points out.

Tony’s retort is low, sultry. “It would have worked on me.”

Steve looks over his shoulder, confirming he is alone. He pads over to the door, locks it, then returns to bed where he unbuckles his belt, his fingers slipping downward to flip open the button of his pants and fondle his burgeoning erection. “Hmmmm… well, you’re easier to talk to. We have a certain rapport.” They had been friends for years (and then strangers for several more), but it was only recently long after they reconnected that their conversation had taken a sexual turn. Sometimes, he wonders if Tony had intended for this to happen; sometimes, he wonders if it matters.

“Admit it, Cap. You’ve felt it too, this… this thing between us. It’s electric. Always has been.”

His hand stops mid-stroke. “You’ve never... not when we were in the same room and could do anything about it.”

“But I always wanted to, and you know what they say: better late than never.”

Steve closes his eyes and bites his lip to stop the swell of tears. “Would you have… I mean before, when you and Pepper were broken up– would you have been open to something? With me?” He didn’t often talk about hypotheticals, about how things might have been different if only they had–

“Yes,” Tony says, devastating Steve all over again. “You think I never thought about it before? Of course I had, but… well, I’m sure you’re well aware that the timing was bad. It was just bad luck all around,” he fumbles over his words, trying to get them back on track. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t… well, there’s no time like the present.”

Steve continues the slow drag up and down. “What would you do to me if you were here?”

“For starters, I would have you on your knees…” there’s a pause, as if Tony is unzipping his own pants, “Mouth open wide and stretched around my cock as you play with yourself.”

Steve imagines it then, his tongue on Tony’s dick, his nose pressed deep into the man’s dark curls, breathing in his musk. Tony wouldn’t be one to sit still, either, content to simply receive. His fingers would tangle in Steve’s hair, twist it as he bucked into his mouth, his cockhead sliding down Steve’s throat and cutting off his breathing, making him lightheaded. He’d be rough and perhaps a little angry still, and Steve would just take whatever Tony wanted to dish out, whatever part of himself he’d let Steve have.

He groans at the thought.

Tony’s voice is breathy. “Maybe I’d even let you rub up against my leg, like the needy thing you are. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Tony must take Steve’s heavy breathing for assent, because he adds, “Who would have thought Captain America would be such a little cockslut?”

Steve swallows his pants. “Tony… Tony, please–”

“Take out that toy I know you have stashed under your bed,” he orders.

Steve reaches over the edge, fumbling for the box he keeps for just such an occasion. He finds it and flips it open to remove a tube of lube and a sizeable dildo in Iron Man red. He had never seen Tony’s actual dick in the flesh, nor had he watched any of Tony’s old sex tapes – that would have just been creepy – but he likes the color and heft of this toy and thinks having it is less weird than possessing a more realistic facsimile of Tony’s member.

He lubes it up, letting his hand linger over the silicone surface to heat it up.

“Would you make me take it?” He asks into the phone, pressing the dildo to his entrance, teasing his rim with light non-penetrating thrusts.

“I’d bend you over my workstation, pull down those ridiculous pants to just below those delicious globes–”

“Yeah?” Steve gasps, slipping the head of the dildo past the ring of muscle. He closes his eyes, concentrates on the sound of Tony’s voice washing over him and tries to imagine it is Tony’s dick working its way inside him.

“Neither of us would get fully undressed, too excited, too desperate for me to finally fuck that fantastic ass. You’d want me to, wouldn’t you? Just remove the bare minimum so I can slide inside, fuck you over my desk. You wouldn’t even wait for me to do it properly in a bed or after I take you to a nice dinner. No not you. You’d let me do it wherever I want, whenever I want.”

Steve is thrusting the dildo roughly in and out of his ass. This is how Tony would take him after all they’ve been through. Not nice and slow, but angry, every thrust a gut punch, a knot of passion and punishment, like a caress over an open nerve.

“Whatever you want,” Steve confirms. He would take it, not because he thought he deserved it, but because this would be the only way he could have Tony.

Tony sucks in a breath. “Yeah, I’d make you like it, too, have you begging me for more, to fuck you harder, deeper, and if you’re good, I’ll even reach around and help you out–”

“And what would you do if I was bad?” Steve asks, his pace unrelenting. He’s already getting so close. He didn’t have much experience, and it showed. He never lasted long with Tony, even when the man wasn’t touching him at all.

“If you can’t be good, I’ll have Iron Man hold you down as I took what I wanted, at the speed I wanted. I’d make you want it too, even if it hurts… especially if it hurts.” This is Steve’s favorite part, when Tony’s voice goes rough and gravelly with want, with need. “Just imagine it, Steve: you pinned down by Iron Man, maybe he’ll even lean forward, trap your body under his weight so he can hold your ass open for my dick as you struggled to escape. You’d be so tense… so tight for me as I sank deep into your body, over and over.”

Steve thrusts to the rhythm of his voice, the scenario playing out in his mind where he tries to fight him off, and Iron Man overwhelms him anyway. “I– I’ll learn to be good. I can be so– so very good for you,” he finds himself promising.

“You would be, Steve. I’d make you mine, ruin you for anyone else.”

 _Too late,_ Steve thinks as he comes with a low groan. He wishes he could see Tony’s face. What does he look like when he orgasms? Would he close his eyes, bite his bottom lip in pleasure or would his mouth hang open in a perfect O? Steve will never know, he thinks with a twinge.

This whole thing with Tony… it didn’t start off sexual. Steve feels the need to specify that, to justify this turn of events to himself. Tony had called him first, had left that door cracked ajar, and Steve had simply… let himself in. It was the little things at first: he had missed his friend and had just wanted to hear his voice, to listen to how he weaved different threads of conversation together in a cohesive cadence that was distinctly _Tony Stark_. Sure, the phone was for emergencies only, and this was never its intended purpose, but Tony… well, it didn’t matter. The point was that how their conversation had evolved was decidedly different than what either of them had intended.

He breathes heavily, letting the dildo slide out of his ass, the tip resting between his cheeks, as he catches his breath. “That was… it was amazing, Tony,” he pants.

Sometimes, he wonders if Tony still talks to Pepper or if this side of him is just for Steve? Steve likes to think he’s special, but the impulse leaves him feeling guilty. Pepper is Tony’s _wife;_ by all rights, her claim to him is stronger than his own, but still–

“Glad to be of service. It’s not every day a guy gets to deflower a legend, and now I get to do it thrice a week and twice on Christmas.”

“I’ve had sex before,” Steve sputters. “I’m old, not dead.”

“It was a joke, Cap. You need to lighten up a little.”

He can’t conceive of Tony doing this for anyone else, not even Pepper. Steve wonders if she knows. He’s never asked, but he thinks she does. After all, Tony had never been one for secrets; that has always been Steve’s thing.

He had wanted to keep this – whatever this is – just between him and Tony, a secret pick-me-up after a hard job or a treat after yet another failed date, but as time goes on, Steve talks to him more often and longer until Tony occupies all his free time.

He regrets telling Bucky after that very first phone call, back when it had been a mostly harmless (and platonic) anomaly.

Bucky had been confused by the whole affair. “Didn’t you guys… I thought Stark hated you. Ever since, well…” He had shifted uncomfortably, not wanting to reopen old wounds, especially considering Bucky himself had been the cause of their rift.

“We were friends before all that,” Steve had told him by way of explanation.

Bucky was unconvinced. “I don’t know, Stevie. It’s your decision, but um… be careful is all I’m saying, I guess.”

“Aren’t I always?”

“Says the man who jumps out of a plane sans parachute with frightening regularity.”

“We both know it’s faster that way with less chance of detection.”

Bucky had grabbed him by the shoulders then, trying to instill just how odd, how dangerous this situation could easily become. “That’s my point. You’re reckless. Always have been; always will be, but this… This thing with Tony? It’s… I can’t believe he’d–”

“Careful, Buck,” Steve had warned him.

Bucky had sighed, but he had backed off, complaining: “It’s just not fair to you.”

“None of this is. For anyone.”

That had been months and approximately 217 phone calls ago, not that Steve is counting.

Maybe Bucky had forgotten? He hadn’t mentioned it in the interim and had accepted Steve’s excuses not to go out. _I’m busy,_ Steve would say. _I need to catch up on paperwork._ It wasn’t exactly a lie, but the paperwork took an hour, tops. The rest of the time was for Tony.

“So, Bucky, Sam, and the rest are going out, and you’re the only one stuck in the office?” Tony had told him. “If that were me, I’d blow it off, go out, meet people… don’t they have assistants that can file paperwork for you?”

“If you want the job done right, you’ve got to do it yourself.”

“Sounds like an excuse.”

Steve doesn’t deny it. “You got me. I’d rather spend time with you.”

The line is silent for a beat, then: “I wish you wouldn’t.”

* * *

Steve never thought he’d be fighting Nazis again, not nearly eighty years after the fall of the Third Reich. The Avengers had managed to infiltrate their compound and thwart their planned mass slaughter of political opponents, but Steve had made a mistake, had miscalculated the reach of his opponent’s weapon, and when his suit ripped open, Tony’s phone fell out. He had panicked and caught it out of instinct before it could fall through the grate, but in the moment he was distracted, he would have been taken out entirely if it hadn’t been for Sam. At the end of the day, they had succeeded with few injuries, but it had been a near thing.

Bucky confronts him after in Steve’s personal quarters. “What was that back there?”

“It won’t happen again,” Steve promises. He’ll figure out a better storage system. His current one had worked for years, but there is always room for improvement.

“You were distracted, and I think we both know why.”

“I don’t know what you’re–”

But Bucky has had enough of his friend’s bullshit. He looks Steve straight in the eye and tells him, “They know about the phone, the others, that is.”

It’s a special kind of betrayal.

“…I told you about that in confidence.”

“They deserved to know,” Bucky insists, running his fingers through his hair. He had shorn it short again and looked more like his old self from before the war, before the fall, before– “You’re our leader. We’ll follow you to hell and back, then suit up and do it again on your command, but if you’re compromised–”

“I’m not compromised.”

Bucky raises a brow. “How can you say that?”

“It’s just… I– I miss him, Buck. I miss Tony,” Steve admits. He feels stuck. It has been almost a year, and he’s still no better than he had been.

It hadn’t escaped Bucky’s notice.

“I know you do, but this thing you’re doing with the phone… It’s just not healthy.”

“It’s all I have.”

“You have us. Me. The team. We all care about you.”

“I know, but… It’s hard, you know, letting go. That’s never been my strong suit.” First Peggy, then Bucky himself, and now Tony. It’s an undeniable pattern spanning decades.

“It _is_ one of your best and most frustrating qualities,” Bucky commiserates, “but… well, I really think you need to. Just this once.”

* * *

Bucky is right. Of course he’s right. Steve could be angry with him, but it’s not like he hadn’t been thinking the same thing for months now, ever since he got that first phone call. He had known this was a mistake even then, but it was so easy to give in. He could still do that now, continue as he was and pretend that everything is okay, but Steve is not one to shy away from doing what’s right, even if it’s difficult (especially if it’s difficult), and so shortly after Bucky leaves, he drops onto the foot of his bed and calls Tony.

“Hey, Cap. Back so soon?” Tony’s voice is chipper over the line. He doesn’t know this is the end.

Steve’s reply is impressively even. “I just wanted to call and tell you myself: This is goodbye, Tony.”

It is the hardest thing he has ever done.

Tony doesn’t understand, at least at first. “Alright, weird that you’d call only to hang up so fast, but–”

“I mean for good.”

There’s a pause, a breath fritzing over the line, then: “You sure?”

“Yeah, I was talking to Bucky–”

“Ah yes, who could forget Brother-in-Arm, hm? He always has a funny habit of coming between us.”

“He’s right though. I can’t– I can’t keep doing this, living in the past. I need to move on.” This conversation is already months overdue. They both know it.

“…I need you to say it, Cap.”

Steve sucks in a breath then chokes on the exhale. “I love you, Tony. I never said it before, and now it’s too late,” he cries, his vision blurring. He wipes the tears on his sleeve, only for more to fall.

“I knew,” Tony tells him, seemingly unaffected by Steve’s audible plight. “I loved you too, you know. Before. For a long time actually.”

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” Steve manages, his voice high and accusing. “You never called. Not once. For _years._ We could have– things would have been different.”

They could have been something. Once. He imagines it now, all that fight and fire channeled into passionate ardor and tangled limbs. He would have kissed Tony in the heat of an argument, and Tony probably would have bitten his lip, but he would have kissed back.

“Would it?” Tony is saying now. “You never would have budged on Bucky; I wouldn’t have backed down either. And then after… you know how I am. I couldn’t just come to you after how we left things. The world was ending – had ended – and I still couldn’t bring myself to… well, you know how it went down. I don’t really need to rehash it.”

“Maybe if we trusted each other more,” Steve insists, “if we had a stronger foundation–”

“Those are conjectures, Cap, and I prefer to deal in realities.”

Steve pulls the phone from his ear to stare at the receiver as if he can see the speaker by doing so. He returns it. “Really?”

“Yeah, believe it or not. That’s kind of my shtick. I just… I never wanted you to have so many regrets, not about me anyway. I didn’t want to be Peggy all over again.”

“Is that why you…”

“Yes. There was too much left to say between us. We both felt it, but we were both too stubborn to say any of it. At the end of the day, you needed more time, and I loved you too much to refuse you.”

 _And now I present Steve Rogers: The world’s leading authority on waiting too long,_ Steve thinks bitterly.

“Thank you, Tony,” he says instead.

“Don’t mention it, Cap.”

_If this is the end…_

“Will we ever speak again?”

_It all feels too permanent._

There’s another sigh, a pause as Tony considers and recalibrates his response. “This was only ever meant to be temporary, a stopgap to help you transition and move on with your life. I fear I have outlived my original purpose, and instead you are using me to deny certain realities you’d rather not face.”

Steve frowns. “You don’t sound like him. He’d never phrase it that way.”

The change is almost seamless. “Cap, we had a good run, but it’s time, okay? It’s time. You need to let go; you need to say the words.”

Fresh tears fall, dripping off his nose, his chin, trying to fill the hole where Tony used to be. It’s not enough, and the emptiness aches deep within his very being. “I love you. I love you, and I’m so sorry.”

Tony’s voice is serene and friendly but still oh-so-frustratingly detached. “I love you too, and don’t be sorry. Everything turned out exactly how it was supposed to. We won; we got everyone back. Now, you go out there, and you live a full, happy life. A simple life. No regrets. It’s what I’ve always wanted for you.”

Steve sniffles, runs a hand over his face and through his hair as he calms himself. He’s already made it this far; he can do this. Still– 

“Okay… Okay, I will. You know – for the record – the kill switch was unkind. It’s what you would have called ‘a dick move.’”

“I needed you to be sure.” Tony’s voice is warm, gentle.

“That’s not what I meant. The words, they–”

“I needed you to know.”

Steve takes a deep, steadying breath to calm the despair crawling up from his chest, the lump threatening to choke him altogether. “Icicle, Longing, Oath… Velvet, Echo, Yellow,” he repeats from memory, “Obtuse,” –another pause– “Umbrella.”

There’s a low whirr that can be mistaken for a sigh, then: “Goodbye Steve.”

“Goodbye Tony.”

The line goes silent.

Steve continues to hold the phone to his ear, listening to make sure the phone’s dead, that he’s gone.

It hits him then. Tony is dead. He’s dead, and he isn’t coming back. Steve will never see him again, never get to hold him, or be able to tell him…

To tell him–

Steve drops the phone. He slumps forward, his shoulders heaving as he cries it out. It’s like losing Tony all over again.

Less than a minute passes before the door creaks open and there’s a pressure encircling his arms and around his back as he’s pulled forward, his face buried in soft cotton and the familiar warm scent of family, of home. Steve clings to it, his embrace tight and crushing.

“Shhhh, Stevie. It’s alright,” Bucky is whispering, his hands rubbing circles in his back. “You’re going to be alright.”

“I– I love him, Bucky.”

“I know you do.” Bucky can only hold his oldest and best friend, softly shushing his cries until they turn into choking gasps then hiccups. He knows what it’s like, to have everything stripped away, but he also knows Stevie is a survivor. He will hold on to whatever is left with a fierceness of one who knows what it is to lose everything.

That’s something they have in common.

“Would you like me to stay?” he offers. “You don’t have to do this alone. You’ve never had to do this alone.”

In the past, Steve had shrugged off his help in the wake of tragedy, but his mother’s illness had been slow, had given him time to come to terms with her eventual demise long after she had withered to a husk of her former self. By contrast, Tony’s death had been a knife, sudden and unexpected, cutting down a man who seemed invulnerable, with so much life left to live and so much he never got to say.

Steve nods, too choked up to say more.

“Alright, Stevie; I’ll stay, okay? I’m going to stay with you, and we’ll get through this.” He reaches for the fallen phone.

“No,” Steve grabs it, pockets the device. It’s just a phone now, but he isn’t ready to let go. Not yet.

Bucky holds up his hands. “Okay, okay… you can keep it.”

Maybe one day, Steve will be able to leave it be, stash the phone in a junk drawer along with his extra rubber bands and bits of twine and other things he may need one day (but not today). He’ll take it out on the anniversary of Tony’s death, hold it and remember the man’s life, their friendship and all the moments and regrets it encompassed. But today, he keeps it close to his heart where Tony had long ago carved out a space and crawled inside. He resides there still, curled up snug and warm, safe and happy and _alive_ in Steve’s memories.

With shaking fingers, Steve dials Tony’s AI once again, but all he hears is a dial tone.

**Author's Note:**

> When you love someone, there is never enough time.
> 
> This takes place after Endgame, but Steve doesn’t go back in time to live out his life with Peggy. He is in a dark place after Tony’s death, but he soon discovers that Tony had left an AI version of himself meant to comfort Steve in case their final mission went tits up, which it did. Steve can access this AI through the emergency flip phone he had left Tony at the end of Captain America: Civil War, and at first he uses it to just hear Tony’s voice and talk to him a little. The AI tries to encourage Steve to move on, but Steve becomes entrenched in a fantasy world where Tony is still alive and only a phone call away. Eventually, the calls even take a sexual turn. Bucky pulls him out, and Steve eventually shuts down the program using a series of code words.
> 
> Prompt in full: Tony dies with the phone on him and after his death, Steve finds out that he can communicate to Tony through the phone.
> 
> The title is from a Maya Angelou poem “When I Think of Death”:
> 
> When I think of death, and of late the idea has come with alarming frequency, I seem at peace with the idea that a day will dawn when I will no longer be among those living in this valley of strange humors.  
> I can accept the idea of my own demise, but I am unable to accept the death of anyone else.  
> I find it impossible to let a friend or relative go into that country of no return.  
> Disbelief becomes my close companion, and anger follows in its wake.  
> I answer the heroic question ‘Death, where is thy sting?’ with ‘it is here in my heart and mind and memories.’


End file.
